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Online Reference Resources

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American Founding Era Collection

Created and maintained by the University of Virginia, this database contains fully-searchable digital versions of the papers of major figures of early American history. Users can search any of the following publications or across the entire database:

American National Biography

Members can search and browse this digital edition of Oxford University Press's 24-volume reference set published in 1999. The database is updated semi-annually: new entries are added and previously published entries are revised for accuracy and currency. Each of the 18,700 entries contains a descriptive bibliography, and the database contains over 80,000 linked cross-references.

Historical Statistics of the United States

The electronic edition expands and enhances the Cambridge University Press 5-volume set published in 2006. Covering a vast range of topics, this is the source for quantitative facts of American history. Numerous essays place the statistical tables in historical context, and all of the database's content is searchable. Tables may be downloaded and customized.

Marquis Who's Who

Marquis Biographies Online contains over 1.5 million profiles from more than twenty titles published in the Marquis’ Who’s Who series since 1985. The database also includes 110,000 biographies culled from the Who Was Who in America series (1607-1985). Updated daily, MBO offers users the ability to create targeted searches using 15 search criteria. 

Masterplots

Now in its fourth edition, Masterplots is an old standby in literature reference collections. The work of 700 academics and independent scholars, the digital version contains the entire newly revised 12 volume edition, with 2,220 essays summarizing and analyzing works of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and drama.

Oxford Art Online

Using Oxford Art Online, Library members can access and simultaneously cross-search acclaimed art reference works published by Oxford University Press: The Benezit Dictionary of Artists, The Encyclopedia of Aesthetics, The Oxford Companion to Western Art, and The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art Terms. The Benezit Dictonary of Artists contains 170,000 entries on artists from antiquity to the present day, plus thousands of auction records, museum holdings, and bibliographies, and includes images of artists\' signatures, monograms, and stamps.

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography

The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography is the national record of men and women who have shaped British history and culture from the Romans to the 21st century. The DNB offers concise, up-to-date biographies written by named, specialist authors. The database also includes the complete text of the original 33-volume print edition, plus over 10,000 portrait images.

Oxford English Dictionary

This is the online edition of the 20-volume OED, widely regarded as the accepted authority on the English language and an unsurpassed guide to the meaning, history, and pronunciation of 600,000 words—past and present—from across the English-speaking world. Each word entry includes: etymology, definition, part of speech, date of origination, pronunciation, quotation, and cross-references.

Oxford Music Online

Oxford Music Online is a cross-searchable database that includes the full contents of the following Oxford University Press publications: The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2nd edition (29 vols., 2001), The New Grove Dictionary of Opera (1992), The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz, 2nd edition (2002), The Oxford Dictionary of Music, 2nd edition (2006), and The Oxford Companion to Music (2011). The database features more than 50,000 signed articles and 30,000 biographies contributed by over 6,000 scholars from around the world.

The process of adding text from two new and forthcoming print publications, The Grove Dictionary of American Music, 2nd edition (8 vols., 2013), and The Grove Dictionary of Musical Instruments, 2nd edition (5 vols., 2014), is ongoing. When these volumes are fully online, they will add more than 20,000 new and revised articles to the database.

Oxford Reference Online

Oxford Reference Online brings together encyclopedias, dictionaries, and other reference works into a single cross-searchable resource. Available subjects include: Books and Libraries; Recreation and Sports; Government and Law; Art and Architecture; History, Biography, and Genealogy; Language and Literature; Performing Arts; Natural Sciences and Mathematics; Technology and Applied Sciences; Health and Medicine; Religion and Philosophy; Social Sciences; Area and Cultural Studies; Geography and Travel; Law; Political Science; Psychology.

People of the Founding Era

Published by the University of Virginia and drawn from the papers of the Founding Fathers and other documents of the era, People of the Founding Era provides biographical information on over 25,000 people born between 1713 (the end of Queen Anne's War) and 1815 (the end of the Napoleonic War). The database features identically-structured data for each person allowing for group (gender, occupation, etc.), or prosopographical, study.

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